Garmin Forerunner 35, Easy-to-Use GPS Running Watch, Frost Blue, 1 (010-01689-02)

I have been running long distances (half to full marathons) the past couple years, and finally decided I needed to replace my old ‘dumb’ watch. I was recommended this one by my parents (also runners) and I am so happy with it, I can’t believe I spent so long manually tracking distance for my runs!Pros:-Mileage tracking: No more manual mile tracking before a long run! I used to spend hours of frustration tracking long (10-20 mile) runs, only to have to completely redo the route because it’s slightly too short or long, or I get out there and a road is closed. This watch accurately tracks miles, displaying clearly on the face where I’m at (which is also a big pro) and notifying me by vibration, display, and sound when I hit a mile increment (and showing average pace, love it!!).-Display: I have pretty bad eyesight but can’t wear contacts and hate wearing glasses when I run, so I generally have a difficult time reading watches, especially if I’m out in the early morning before sunrise, or in not so nice weather. The display on this is very clear, even in bright sunlight, and large enough for me to read without my glasses.-Sleep tracking: This wasn’t a huge feature for me, but I have to say it’s nice to check into the app every once and a while to see how I’ve been sleeping. I had purchased a very cheap fitness tracker watch previously that constantly under-recorded my sleep, so it’s nice to see it more accurate with this one.-App: I can’t emphasize how much this watch and accompanying app has simplified my training. I used to spend hours mapping, remapping, and recording my runs and checking pace. The app automatically records all of this- pace, HR, elevation, you name it. It even records mile split times! It’s so user friendly and simple, and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better app for my marathon training.-Fit: I was a bit concerned about the fit of a smart watch/fitness watch, because I have TINY wrists. Luckily my parents both have the same watch, and I was able to try it on before purchasing- the watch face is large and takes up most of my wrist, but the band does tighten down small enough for me.Cons:-(Very minor) Wrist strap: It feels thin and a bit cheap, and tends to get dirty easily because it’s has tiny grooves. It can be cleaned, but a more substantial band without places to trap dirt and sweat would be nice (I can get 3rd party replacements if I need to).This watch is perfect for running (and I’m sure other sports as well), it makes long runs so much less stressful! I highly recommend it!

This is my 4th Forerunner in 20 years…the last one bit the dust during a bike crash. I considered upgrading to a fancier model, with music and an auto pause maybe, and just decided that simpler is better for me. This watch is idiot proof. You’re only using 4 buttons (and really only 2 mostly). It’s super easy to start, does a great job of tracking mileage and routes and you can easily view your workouts afterwards. Love the breakdown of HR zones and ESPECIALLY love than an accurate HR is viewable with one touch of a button throughout my day. I always encourage my personal training clients to buy a Garmin versus an Apple Watch when specifically needing a FITNESS watch. No unnecessary junk. I find it comfortable enough to wear at night, but it took a few days initially to get used to. Very accurate on runs and bike rides but I find it’s not QUITE as accurate in the “Cardio” mode if I’m on the stair master, for example. Other than that, highly recommend!

I’ve had this watch for about a month and a half now, and I love it!!! I had the Forerunner 15 (which is also a great watch) before this, and I like the 35 even better! It is definitely slimmer than the 15 and looks more like a smart watch than just a GPS watch. It is not touch screen – it has the same 4 buttons as the 15, and the interface is similar. The 35 has a bigger face and the time is displayed in white with the background black which makes it easier to read in the dark (it does still have a backlight button like the 15). I wear my watch all day, but not at night. It’s supposed to do sleep tracking if you wear it while you sleep, but it bothers me to have something on my wrist while I sleep, so I haven’t tested that feature. I think the step tracking is accurate – it seems comparable to what my 15 was calculating. The GPS is very accurate – within .05 of a mile I would say. If I’m running on a measured course, it usually is a bit under what the course is supposed to be, but that’s probably because I’m running as close to the inside as possible making the distance I actually ran a bit shorter than what the course is supposed to be. The 35 offers several features that the 15 does not have: smartphone notifications, bluetooth connectivity, displaying the weather, and heart rate. Starting with the smartphone notifications: it is pretty simple to set this us – just connect via bluetooth through the garmin connect app (I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 and it was easy to set up and works well). There is a setting where you can set which apps you get notifications from and you can set it to beep or vibrate or both. I have mine set to vibrate and it works perfectly. You can NOT send messages from the watch – it ONLY READS notifications. If you want to send messages or make calls from your watch, this is not the watch for you. However, you can answer/reject a phone call from your watch. This has been surprisingly useful – if my phone is in my bag, across the room, or somewhere else, I can answer the call from my wrist then look for the phone so I don’t miss the call. Also, I keep my phone on silent all the time, so its nice to know when I get a message and not disturb others. There is a do not disturb mode – the watch won’t vibrate/beep which comes in handy sometimes. On to bluetooth connectivity: You don’t have to plug in your watch to sync it with garmin connect! It will automatically sync with your phone when bluetooth is enabled! I didn’t think that this would be a big deal, but now that I have it, I don’t think I’ll buy another watch without it – its just so convenient. Weather: It will display the weather, but you have to have the GPS on your phone turned on (I don’t leave the GPS on my phone on, so I don’t use the weather feature). I set it up at first and turned on the GPS just to see what it looked like, and its pretty nice – it gives you hourly temperatures and rain chances. Heart rate monitor: I think I like the idea that it has a hr monitor more than I actually look at it. There is an option to turn the hr monitor off if you want (I assume it would save battery). It calculates your average resting hr which is nice (I haven’t tested its accuracy, but the numbers seem right). It also gets your hr during a run/workout which is nice, but I rarely look at it. One final feature that may be the best thing about this watch – it does “find my phone.” You have to have it connected up by bluetooth and be in range (which is surprisingly far and can even go through a wall/door). When you select find my phone on the watch, it makes your phone ring (even if its on silent), vibrate, and the flash for the camera blinks. I haven’t tried it with my phone turned off, but I don’t think that would work since it has to be bluetooth connected. I almost forgot about music control! This is a great feature that lets you play/pause/skip. I don’t use it because I don’t listen to music when I run, but it works well – I played with it when I first go it. Overall, I love this watch and highly recommend it!Pros:Accurate GPSHR MonitorPhone notifications/answer callsBluetooth connectivity – automatically syncs”find my phone”control music from itInterface and overall look of the watch is much sleeker than the previous forerunner models which have a very sporty lookCons:Can’t send a text from the watchHave to have your phone’s GPS turned on the use the weather featureThere is nothing that the watch does poorly, the cons are just features that would be nice if it had them.Another quick note: Battery Life – It has not been an issue for me. I charge my watch every night, but it usually still has 2/3 bars of battery when I plug it in. I run every morning for 30-75 minutes with the GPS on which is the primary loss of battery. If I don’t run, it stays at 3 bars the whole day. I think the HR Monitor can drain the battery too, so if you wanted you could turn that off.

While I was in the military from 1895 till 2005 I was in excellent shape. I was doing about 4 hrs of progressive weight training/week and getting 7.5 hrs/week of very high intensity cardio. When I retired, I was probably in the best physical condition of my life, at 6% body fat. I was 51, then. After I retired, for the first few of years, I maintained a gym membership and kept up my training. By 2010, I was working in my consulting business, and I began teaching part time at a local university. More time on my ass and less time in the gym. In 2013, I began teaching full time, and I became almost totally sedentary. About the only exercise I was getting was walking across campus between classes. Just before Christmas, I calculated my body fat percentage using the Navy method. At 5’8″ and 178 lbs I found myself to be 29% body fat and obese! That did it for me. I realized I had to start to get back into shape, and I realized that it would be a lot harder now at 65 than it was when I was in my 20s.I have never been much of a distance runner/jogger. In the Navy, I ran my 3 miles a year for my two physical readiness tests, and that was about all the running I actually did (even though I was a sprinter in college). It also occurred to me that I probably just couldn’t jump on a Stairmaster, and workout at 175 bpm heart rate for 90 min, either. So, with the recommendation of my internist, I decided to start increasing my activity by walking. We live in a subdivision on a street that is an oval of exactly 1/2 mile in length (I drove around it eight times and it really is exactly 1/2 mile). I started walking around my street on Dec 26. I started going around twice (i mile), then I increased the distance by a lap a day, until I was up to 10 laps on Jan 3 (I took Jan 1 off). Since then I had been walking between 8 and 10 laps daily, trying to increase my pace as I went. Somehow, I knew I wasn’t getting enough feedback from just the mileage/time calculations. Back when I was working out in gyms, I always wore a chest strap, with one of the more advanced Polar watches. Now that it is over 10 years later, I explored more modern technology, in the age of FitBit and Apple Watches.Actual review starts here: One of the first decisions I made about getting an exercise watch, was that it would need to have GPS, since I have resigned myself to a walking regimen until I get my weight under control, and I regain some of my cardiovascular endurance. I also wanted a watch that used ANT + as its transmission system, because I knew that at some time I would want to add a chest strap for more accurate heart rate measurements (I purchased a Powr Labs strap that arrived today, more about that coming up). I also wanted the watch to be water resistant enough to allow me to swim (This is south Florida, and in the summer, it is a lot easier to do laps in a pool than it is to even walk, and by Summer, I will probably need to change to an activity that will allow me to increase my heart rate above the aerobic zone). The final thing was that the watch needed to be easy to read in a number of different lighting conditions. As I was purusing the various devices here at Amazon, I was immediately struck by the Garmin watch. Ergonomically it appeared to fit exactly the way I would want a watch to fit (I haven’t worn a watch in over 20 years), and the way the contrast is set to make the LCD display easier to read with more intense light, it appeared to be perfect for outdoor use in Florida. After reading a number of reviews, that suggested it was a good watch (but not great) at $200, I figured that for under $100 it was probably more than enough to satisfy my needs.The watch came the other day, and I spent about two hours reading the manual and playing with the features. I took the watch outside, selected the “Walk” activity and the watch set the time and date through the GPS signal (None of the Polars I had previously owned did anything like that, and the most annoying thing about those watches was setting date and time). Yesterday was my first day actually using the watch. Before I left for school, I did four laps around my street, and sure enough, the watch registered 4.1 miles ( I stopped it after walking up my driveway). It also had my HR average at 122 bpm, which seemed reasonable to me. At school, the class I taught yesterday was in the library, which is about a half mile from the building in which I have an office. Since “walking” is to be my fitness thing, I walked to and from class from my office building. After I got home, I walked another two laps around my street. After dinner, I synched the watch to my iPhone. After the synch, all of the activities I did since I began wearing the watch were displayed. I guess I’m still fascinated by the GPS thing, and when I tapped each of the saved exercises, I was treated to a GPS map of my actual walking path. The repeated oval around my street wasn’t too interesting, but at school I took two different paths to and from the library, and it was very cool to see them clearly defined on the map display.Today is my day off from school, so this morning I set out walk my 10 laps around my street oval. Just before I left the house, the Amazon Prime truck arrived dropping off Powr Labs ANT + chest strap. I took some time to synch the strap to the watch, and then set out on my walk. I walked eight laps, then paused to remove the strap so that I could proceed with just the watch measuring my HR, so I could make some “in the ballpark” comparisons. After two more laps, I went into the house and synched the watch to the iPhone. Of course, I got the same boring GPS map of the “circle” on which I live, but the thing I was most interested in was how close the average HR measurements were between the watch and the chest strap. For the chest strap, the eight lap HR average was 130 bpm (I try to walk at a little over 3.5 mph pace), and the two lap average for the watch alone was 132 bpm. As far as I can tell, the physiological variables were probably more noisy than the actual differences between the measurements, and, at least for my wrist physiology, the watch is probably “close enough for Government work”.So, in conclusion, all I can say is that I really love this watch. It does way more than I really need it to, and things I need it to do it does exceptionally well. If you are a competing tri-athlete, you may need something more powerful and complicated, but for me, and I’m sure the many people who want to invest in a product that will help get them off there asses, for the cost, there really isn’t a lot that competes well with the Garmin Forerunner 35.

TLDR: Good for few-whistles, basic data tracking (miles and time) with some new perks. If you want high-fidelity data or activity tracking, programmable workouts, integration with other devices/apps, I suggest youPurchased this about 3 months ago (May 2020) primarily to track distance/speed for running (M, ~160 lbs, ~20 miles/week). Previously spent about 7 years with the Forerunner 205 and Forerunner 15. This is basically the Forerunner 15 with some added activity tracking (wrist HR monitoring, cardio, etc.) and a much trendier look. I bought this to replace my FR15 and they are almost the same price even after all these years. I suspect the wrist HR monitoring and visual overhaul are responsible for the relative price hike; unfortunately both are features I didn’t particularly care for. On the first use or two, it took some time to acquire satellites (>3 min) , but after that it routinely is ready to go after ~30s (even from inside my apt). I imagine if you travel long distances, it will go take a while to acquire satellites again.While running, the primary display contains time and distance which is really all I personally care about. Other screens contain instantaneous pace, calories burned, HR, etc. I’ve personally never found the real-time pace indication to be particularly, even on the slightly higher end FR205.Heart rate has also been inconsistent: when I’m just sitting on my couch it indicated HRs of over 120, and when I’ve been gasping for breath mid-workout, it’s indicated my HR was <50. HR tracking via wrists is not an easy task, and I haven't tried more popular activity trackers so I can't speak to the relative accuracy. The manual includes instructions on how to properly place the the watch on your wrist, which I followed but to no avail. After about 2 months with the watch, HR does seem to have dialed in a little better, but still has a great deal of variance. If you're really into accurate data collection, you're probably better off with a dedicated fitness tracker or a more expensive model as the step counter feature isn't particularly great either.As far as GPS quality goes, it seems to be fairly reliable. Compared to manually mapping my runs, this comes reasonably close. With all the Forerunner models I've found that the fewer turns you take, the more accurate the GPS tracking is. Can't speak for the accuracy during swimming or biking. I did have the GPS go haywire (> 25% error on the total run distance) on one run during the first week, which worried me a bit. Seems like it was an isolated incident as it has not occurred since and I’ve had that occasionally happen with the other models.In all, perfect for my use with the added benefit of being more flashy and with a few new features. I could have done without the fitbit cross-over redesign, but it ain’t bad. Worried about the glass screen not being as durable, but time will tell. If you want higher accuracy or more control over your data and workouts, go with a higher end watch. This a decent mix of capability and cost if you want all you want is to track time and miles without having to bring your phone along.